What are the Real differences between consoles?

WolfForager · 04-11-2009 11:37pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Even with the PS3 slim being heavily pushed, I don't ever see the PS3 becoming profitable.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

As for Sony, the PS3 is in the red. A lot. I haven't heard anything about their 2009 figures, but it's hard to see how the PS3 will ever make a profit.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/may/14/sonytriplesprofitsbutplays

Read a statement from Sony within the last week on IGN that they were very close to breaking even on PS3 porduction and predict to make a profit on each console sold late next year. I'll have a look for it.

hooradiation · 05-11-2009 12:01pm

Gummy Panda wrote: »

Nintendo makes a profit on every wii. It sells most first party titles to their core fans. Other casual gamers buy it but their software attachment rate is poor. Their third party sales aren't that great. Monster Hunter Tri was probably the best selling third party. This is worrying as developers might be burnt from lackluster sales.

You also don't have to sell as much on the Wii to turn a profit, due to the fact the development costs are generally lower. The generally accepted figure for breaking even on a AAA Wii game is 3/4 - 1 million sales.

However, if you're making shovelware then your threshold for profit is going to be much lower, because you can make and spit these out in short order.

A quick glance on the source of all lies wikipedia shows about 120 Wii games released this year so far. As much as we like to pretend that publishers are pants on head retarded, they're not. They wouldn't be putting money into paying developers, paying QA, paying Nintendo to cert the games and the whole PR/Shipping costs if each and every one of them was causing them to bleed money.

05-11-2009 3:34pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

As for the PS2 getting a lot of play, I don't see why it shouldn't be. It's got a massive catalogue of amazing games that I still haven't gotten through and most are better than the crap that I end up playing on current gen machines like Assassins Creed.

Just on this point, I got back from a holiday in Japan there on Saturday and until i went into a games shop I was under the impression that they weren't making PS2 games any more, save for the "big" games or ones that are annual installments of previously successful sports games like Pro Evo or Tiger Woods.

They've a huge selection of new and old PS2 games on sale there, and are second only to the enormous catalogue of DS games on display. There are an unbelieve amount of DS games on the market. Easily 7 or 8 times as many as we see over here.

Great thread btw.

leninbenjamin · 05-11-2009 4:41pm

WolfForager wrote: »

Read a statement from Sony within the last week on IGN that they were very close to breaking even on PS3 porduction and predict to make a profit on each console sold late next year. I'll have a look for it.

If you'd read the rest of the thread you'd have seen I've already linked to that and given up my explanation as to profitability on the unit sales doesn't mean overall profitability. Sony have lost a lot of money on the PS3 so far, through wasteful marketing, astronomical production costs initially, poorer than expected royalties due to developers indifference towards the Cell and so forth. Just because they are close to recouping costs for the hardware doesn't mean they are anywhere close to becoming profitable yet with the PS3.

noodler · 05-11-2009 5:28pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

If you'd read the rest of the thread you'd have seen I've already linked to that and given up my explanation as to profitability on the unit sales doesn't mean overall profitability. Sony have lost a lot of money on the PS3 so far, through wasteful marketing, astronomical production costs initially, poorer than expected royalties due to developers indifference towards the Cell and so forth. Just because they are close to recouping costs for the hardware doesn't mean they are anywhere close to becoming profitable yet with the PS3.

Yes but you tried to use that article as proof that the ps3 situation was not improving. This was not the situation portrayed by said article.

noodler · 05-11-2009 5:31pm

hooradiation wrote: »

They are telling the public they have good games, you're just not the part of the public they're aiming for.

As i thought the fucking huge pile of money they've made would have demonstrated.

Good? As in critically acclaimed? No.

leninbenjamin · 05-11-2009 6:30pm

noodler wrote: »

Yes but you tried to use that article as proof that the ps3 situation was not improving. This was not the situation portrayed by said article.

But that's my point. I don't think the fact that they are starting to recoup costs on the hardware will have much impact. It'll be 4 years into the life-cycle, the attach rates are still low, developers are still reluctant and they've long missed the window to overtake the 360 and Wii. You call it an improvement, I see it as another year before Sony can even begin to dream of making a profit again.

Btw, they've said that before too.

LookingFor · 06-11-2009 2:05pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

But that's my point. I don't think the fact that they are starting to recoup costs on the hardware will have much impact. It'll be 4 years into the life-cycle, the attach rates are still low, developers are still reluctant and they've long missed the window to overtake the 360 and Wii. You call it an improvement, I see it as another year before Sony can even begin to dream of making a profit again.

Attach rates aren't low. They're about the same as 360.

I'm not sure I understand the comment that developers are reluctant either. Pretty much every third party game (that isn't a Wii game) gets released on PS3. Third party support seems as strong as on any other system, and first party support is better I think.

I do agree that it's unlikely Sony will recoup overall costs on PS3, with PS3 alone at least. But to be honest I don't see why that should matter to us unless you're a Sony shareholder. I'm not going to enjoy my PS3 any more if Sony has recouped its costs on it or not.

For what it's worth, though, I think Sony is going to amortise a lot of these costs - in R&D etc. - over the next generation too. They won't make the same huge from-scratch investments they made with the likes of Cell and Blu-ray. So they probably are thinking more long term on how to get back the investment on PS3, by spreading it across PS4 also.

leninbenjamin · 06-11-2009 5:42pm

LookingFor wrote: »

Attach rates aren't low. They're about the same as 360.

Link? Latest estimates I saw put the PS3's tie ratio at 6 and the 360's at 8. That would fairly contradict the above. Even correcting for the lifecycle they are still down on the 360.

LookingFor wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand the comment that developers are reluctant either. Pretty much every third party game (that isn't a Wii game) gets released on PS3. Third party support seems as strong as on any other system, and first party support is better I think.

There's a difference between publisher's and developers. Publisher's will push a title regardless. That doesn't mean the developer's themselves are eager about the whole thing. This is old but reflective still of developer's general opinions from my experience.

LookingFor wrote: »

I do agree that it's unlikely Sony will recoup overall costs on PS3, with PS3 alone at least. But to be honest I don't see why that should matter to us unless you're a Sony shareholder. I'm not going to enjoy my PS3 any more if Sony has recouped its costs on it or not.

For what it's worth, though, I think Sony is going to amortise a lot of these costs - in R&D etc. - over the next generation too. They won't make the same huge from-scratch investments they made with the likes of Cell and Blu-ray. So they probably are thinking more long term on how to get back the investment on PS3, by spreading it across PS4 also.

It won't effect this generation too much, but there are serious long term implications. The mistakes Sony made with the PS3 are remarkably similar in many levels to the mistakes Nintendo made with the N64, and look at the long term damage that did for Nintendo.

Retr0gamer · 06-11-2009 6:05pm

LookingFor wrote: »

For what it's worth, though, I think Sony is going to amortise a lot of these costs - in R&D etc. - over the next generation too. They won't make the same huge from-scratch investments they made with the likes of Cell and Blu-ray. So they probably are thinking more long term on how to get back the investment on PS3, by spreading it across PS4 also.

I kind of call BS here. Sony are making out Cell processors to be the next big thing but I really can't see Sony going back to using a Cell based processor for the next generation. I think the best thing for them is to go for the industry standard multicore processors and concentrating on making an amazing Gfx card. It will mean a cheaper machine, easier and quicker to get out and easier to program for. Cell just seems to be the usual Sony Emotion engine BS really.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

It won't effect this generation too much, but there are serious long term implications. The mistakes Sony made with the PS3 are remarkably similar in many levels to the mistakes Nintendo made with the N64, and look at the long term damage that did for Nintendo.

Kind of true. The only difference is that the N64 didn't put Nintendo in the Red. It dropped Nintendo from the number 1 spot but nintendo continued to make a profit on each console sold.

MooseJam · 06-11-2009 7:10pm

Gummy Panda wrote: »

Latest Media Create figures i can find are 19/10 - 25/10

I thought 360 was popular - those figures are woeful

LookingFor · 06-11-2009 9:24pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Link? Latest estimates I saw put the PS3's tie ratio at 6 and the 360's at 8. That would fairly contradict the above. Even correcting for the lifecycle they are still down on the 360.

The latest from Sony and Microsoft themselves is a ratio of 8.7 for 360 and 7.9 for PS3 (The former you can find in Microsoft's latest fiscal results, the latter you can get from Sony's corporate info site using total hardware and software numbers). The numbers above are NPD (North America) whereas the Sony and MS numbers are totals based on sellthrough to retail worldwide. The 360 is a little higher, sure, but I think it's fair to say they're in the same ballpark I think.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

There's a difference between publisher's and developers. Publisher's will push a title regardless. That doesn't mean the developer's themselves are eager about the whole thing.

Publishers call the shots. There's no doubt which is the easier platform to get started with from a developer's point of view, though I'd imagine many developers are more comfortable with PS3 now than they were at the start of the generation.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

It won't effect this generation too much, but there are serious long term implications. The mistakes Sony made with the PS3 are remarkably similar in many levels to the mistakes Nintendo made with the N64, and look at the long term damage that did for Nintendo.

They actually made very different mistakes. Sony's big mistake with PS3 was price. Nintendo's was time-to-market, publisher relations and storage medium - the latter two crippling content availability on the platform, and knocking publisher confidence for six - publisher confidence which really hasn't recovered fully at all since. Note still publisher reluctance to fully embrace the Wii format and persistant complaints about it not being as favourable place to do business as other platforms for third parties. Even as market leader, Nintendo can't command the same level of support as Sony and Microsoft can. If they did, then Sony might have bigger problems...if Nintendo did successfully court support away from Sony in the same Sony did to Nintendo during the Playstation/N64 days. But that has not happened. Sony, in a way, has been lucky that 360 has also been successful, as the combined 360 and PS3 audience is what's kept publisher support there for PS3, I think.

The repercussions were also very different. Nintendo ended up in a situation that was difficult to recover from because so many ducks weren't lined up properly in the first place. They're problem wasn't nearly as simple a one as price - but was fundamentally the product, content availability which all affected desireability. If your problem is just price, you can fix that pretty much overnight once you can afford to pricedrop. If the problem is the product itself, then that's a much more complicated challenge. Sony has kept all their ducks in a row except for one - price - one which they've rectified recently, which has resulted in what may turn out to be a fairly unprecedented market recovery for a third place system. Crucially they have also retained and maintained publisher confidence, the most important thing a platform holder can carry over from generation to generation - the most important thing from this generation in influencing events next generation.

This generation on many fronts is quite unlike any we've seen. Comparisons with prior generations can be very misleading I think.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I kind of call BS here. Sony are making out Cell processors to be the next big thing but I really can't see Sony going back to using a Cell based processor for the next generation. I think the best thing for them is to go for the industry standard multicore processors and concentrating on making an amazing Gfx card. It will mean a cheaper machine, easier and quicker to get out and easier to program for. Cell just seems to be the usual Sony Emotion engine BS really.

They could cut their losses on it, and there is talk that they might hop into bed with Intel next generation. But I wouldn't write off them using a more advanced Cell variant if for one reason only - easier backwards compatability.

Either way, though, my main point is that you won't see them making a massive new investment in tech. They'll either leverage Cell or license from someone else (like Intel) - but either way they won't be inventing their own whole new architecture again ala Cell. There'll be no new optical disc format either. You'll see them re-use a lot of their systems software and network investment too - you can expect the PS4's operating system and network stuff to be an evolution and continuation of the PS3's.

noodler · 06-11-2009 9:31pm

There are other reasons the N64 failed don't apply here.

What about the storage size and price of cartidges?

EDIT: For such a failure, the PS3 is is a pretty good position at the moment. This is about as competitive as the console market has been since the Snes/Megadrive in my opinion.

LookingFor · 06-11-2009 9:54pm

noodler wrote: »

EDIT: For such a failure, the PS3 is is a pretty good position at the moment. This is about as competitive as the console market has been since the Snes/Megadrive in my opinion.

That's certainly true.

Actually, if you look at the market leader vs the rest over the previous two generations, both in the PSX and PS2 days, the other consoles combined ended up selling 41% of the market leader's sales. Uncanny that it was the same proportion both generations, but true.

This generation? The other consoles combined are so far exceeding the market leader's sales (108%). On top of that, with a number of years still to go, the combined sales of the non-market-leaders has already exceeded the lifetime sales of the non-leading consoles in the last two generations.

As well as that, rankings this generation have never seemed entirely fixed. Certainly not between #2 and #3 anyway. There's lots of other oddities too, like how the market leader seems to have garnered the least favourable publisher support. How the #3 console is finding - maybe - something of a second wind. This generation is really very different to previous ones we've seen, and a little bit weird to be honest!

In the end I think this is the best way to have it for us. I definitely think everyone's a lot hungrier now than previously.

CiDeRmAn · 07-11-2009 12:05am

Ok, so we all want to know what is the Real difference between the 360, PS3 and the Wii, well, here it goes.

A Nintendo Wii

A Playstation 3

An Xbox 360

Now, that should clear up a few things I reckon.
If you need any more stuff cleared up, I'll be in my trailer....

gizmo · 07-11-2009 12:35am

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Ok, so we all want to know what is the Real difference between the 360, PS3 and the Wii, well, here it goes.

A Nintendo Wii

A Playstation 3

An Xbox 360

Now, that should clear up a few things I reckon.
If you need any more stuff cleared up, I'll be in my trailer....

What? The Wii isn't plugged in, the PS3 is sitting there gathering dust and the 360 actually has some games for it? :pac:

GothPunk · 07-11-2009 12:05pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I kind of call BS here. Sony are making out Cell processors to be the next big thing but I really can't see Sony going back to using a Cell based processor for the next generation. I think the best thing for them is to go for the industry standard multicore processors and concentrating on making an amazing Gfx card. It will mean a cheaper machine, easier and quicker to get out and easier to program for. Cell just seems to be the usual Sony Emotion engine BS really.

The Cell is IBM technology though, not Sony's. (Sony funded sure, but IBM make them.) IBM also make the CPU for the Wii and 360, and if you look at IBM's manufacturing process right now, they're making a lot of Cell based chips. The Xenon in the 360 is like a mini Cell, although designed with x86 architecture in mind I think. So it is possible that the next gen of consoles will be Cell based, unless the console manufacturers go with Intel or someone else. That would be a pretty big deal though, seeing as how IBM have been making CPUs for consoles for several generations.

Using the Cell for the PS4 would cut costs, spread out the R&D costs from this generation and also ensure easy backwards compatability.

CiDeRmAn · 07-11-2009 3:03pm

gizmo wrote: »

What? The Wii isn't plugged in, the PS3 is sitting there gathering dust and the 360 actually has some games for it? :pac:

Story of my current gen gaming life man!

Most played console I own, the PS2, that puppy has provided me with more laughs, scares, excitement and general brown trouser moments of extreme emotion than anything else in my extensive collection.
Only an idiot wouldn't have one.

leninbenjamin · 07-11-2009 3:28pm

GothPunk wrote: »

The Cell is IBM technology though, not Sony's. (Sony funded sure, but IBM make them.) IBM also make the CPU for the Wii and 360, and if you look at IBM's manufacturing process right now, they're making a lot of Cell based chips. The Xenon in the 360 is like a mini Cell, although designed with x86 architecture in mind I think. So it is possible that the next gen of consoles will be Cell based, unless the console manufacturers go with Intel or someone else. That would be a pretty big deal though, seeing as how IBM have been making CPUs for consoles for several generations.

Using the Cell for the PS4 would cut costs, spread out the R&D costs from this generation and also ensure easy backwards compatability.

You're confusing things a little. The Xenon CPU is quite simply the PPE from the Cell. However, that's where the similarities end. The 360 has 3 PPE with hyperthreading so it has 6 virtual cores. It has a shared level 2 cache. It's memory hierarchy is geared towards streaming data to the GPU, but in most respects it's like any other multi-core AMD/Intel offering.#

The Cell's power comes from the SPEs, the vector processing units. These are incredibly efficient for stream processing, however they have a very small local cache and no shared, which makes it very difficult to program for as if the data doesn't fit in the cache it has to be fetched from main memory, which slows the whole thing down. The PPE in the cell simply allocates data to the SPEs, there is absolutely no similarity in programming for the 360 and the Cell.

Cell was a great idea when it came out, however since then you've had Larabee, CUDA, the i7s and a whole heap of other possibilities for stream programming that can operate as efficiently as the Cell without the headaches.

Btw, if larabee does come out soon I wouldn't be surprised if it sneaks into the next gen of consoles. That's where my money would be.

GothPunk · 09-11-2009 9:26pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

You're confusing things a little. /snip.

No i'm not, you've misunderstood the point of my post. The Xenon CPU came about in the early days of the development if the Cell BE, that's what I mean by 'mini Cell'. I wasn't talking about architecture, I was talking about IBM being the common thread between all three consoles.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Cell was a great idea when it came out, however since then you've had Larabee, CUDA, the i7s and a whole heap of other possibilities for stream programming that can operate as efficiently as the Cell without the headaches.

Btw, if larabee does come out soon I wouldn't be surprised if it sneaks into the next gen of consoles. That's where my money would be.

Larabee and CUDA are GPGPU tech though, not CPU tech, which is what I was talking about. Part of my point is about the importance of IBM. Why do console manufacturers keep going to them and not, as you suggest, Intel? Or AMD? Equally reputable and capable manufacturers. My guess is that there are reasons we're not privvy to that make IBM the #1 choice (and therefore Cell BE tech or something related) in the future. That being said, Ken Kutaragi made some odd calls for the PlayStation tech though across their three consoles, but he's gone now, so I guess maybe looking to their past choices isn't that informative.

leninbenjamin · 09-11-2009 10:42pm

GothPunk wrote: »

No i'm not, you've misunderstood the point of my post. The Xenon CPU came about in the early days of the development if the Cell BE, that's what I mean by 'mini Cell'. I wasn't talking about architecture, I was talking about IBM being the common thread between all three consoles.

A Cell consists of 8 vector processors and a single scalar processor. Calling the Xenon a mini Cell is the same as calling my old Pentium PC a mini larrabee because the same processor happens to exist in both...

GothPunk wrote: »

Larabee and CUDA are GPGPU tech though, not CPU tech, which is what I was talking about. Part of my point is about the importance of IBM. Why do console manufacturers keep going to them and not, as you suggest, Intel? Or AMD? Equally reputable and capable manufacturers. My guess is that there are reasons we're not privvy to that make IBM the #1 choice (and therefore Cell BE tech or something related) in the future. That being said, Ken Kutaragi made some odd calls for the PlayStation tech though across their three consoles, but he's gone now, so I guess maybe looking to their past choices isn't that informative.

Why IBM? Imo it's because their processors are generally better at streaming data, as in the Xbox 360s case where where it can go straight from level 1 to the FSB.

Now why Larrabee? Because it's a stream processor essentially. It's very similar to the cell in conception except that it uses older x86 architecture for it's cores which should make it easier to develop for than the existing Cell. Yes it's nominally GPGPU, yet it has no problem running a windows kernal on one of it's cores.

As for the CUDA comment, you don't seem to understand what it is that sets the Cell out from other CPUs. It's the vector processors, the SPEs. The same type of unit that's in a GPU. The whole point of having the Cell as the main CPU in a console is in light of the fact that the algorithms and tech behind games are highly parallelisable in nature. CUDA is a direct alternative to CPUs like the Cell as it exploits the exact same principles to accelerate its operations.

Retr0gamer · 09-11-2009 11:04pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Why IBM? Imo it's because their processors are generally better at streaming data, as in the Xbox 360s case where where it can go straight from level 1 to the FSB.

You're wrong I'd guess. I'd say all 3 manufacturers sent out a tender to develop their next processor and IBM came back with the cheapest bid in all 3 cases.

leninbenjamin · 09-11-2009 11:09pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You're wrong I'd guess. I'd say all 3 manufacturers sent out a tender to develop their next processor and IBM came back with the cheapest bid in all 3 cases.

yeah, but why are they cheaper? because they happened to be working on a stream processor at the time

GothPunk · 10-11-2009 12:59am

leninbenjamin wrote: »

A Cell consists of 8 vector processors and a single scalar processor. Calling the Xenon a mini Cell is the same as calling my old Pentium PC a mini larrabee because the same processor happens to exist in both...

Well if you want to get into semantics, what should I have said, 'pre-Cell'? Sony, IBM and Toshiba paid for the development of the Cell BE tech, but Microsoft actually benefited from this process too via partnership with IBM. The Xenon CPU was developed by the same people at the same time as they were developing the Cell. That's why I called it a 'mini-Cell', as Ars Technica puts it "The Xenon's triple-core design shares some DNA with the Playstation 3's Cell processor". I was making a point to Retr0 about how the Cell is IBM tech that has influenced both 'HD' consoles.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Why IBM? Imo it's because their processors are generally better at streaming data, as in the Xbox 360s case where where it can go straight from level 1 to the FSB.

Now why Larrabee? Because it's a stream processor essentially. It's very similar to the cell in conception except that it uses older x86 architecture for it's cores which should make it easier to develop for than the existing Cell. Yes it's nominally GPGPU, yet it has no problem running a windows kernal on one of it's cores.

As for the CUDA comment, you don't seem to understand what it is that sets the Cell out from other CPUs. It's the vector processors, the SPEs. The same type of unit that's in a GPU. The whole point of having the Cell as the main CPU in a console is in light of the fact that the algorithms and tech behind games are highly parallelisable in nature. CUDA is a direct alternative to CPUs like the Cell as it exploits the exact same principles to accelerate its operations.

What makes you think I don't know how the Cell works? Besides, I think we're coming at this from different angles. You're looking at what's possible from a tech viewpoint and not from a business perspective, which usually makes more sense when dealing with multinational corporations IMO. My comment about CUDA comes from the fact that it's nVidia tech, and Microsoft and nVidia are not good bedfellows anymore, not sure about Sony though. From what I know about CUDA, it requires a CPU in the processing flow, and nVidia don't make CPUs. (What I don't know is, would they license it out to a partner maybe, or go into partnership with another company to apply CUDA tech to the console market?)

I'm not saying I don't think GPGPU's aren't possible in the next-gen of consoles, I'm saying there are business decisions and allegiances that affect how these machines get built. I'm also not saying that the Cell or a version of it is the way forward, I was only suggesting that Sony could spread their R&D cost for this gen onto the next gen if the PS4 was Cell based also. I would imagine that if a company spends billions on some CPU tech they're not going to drop it because someone else has possible done it better - surely they'd take the Cell tech and try to improve it or build on it in some way?

Whatever happens, if next gen looks as good as the Project Offset stuff I don't think I'll care what's in the machines anyway.

noodler · 10-11-2009 2:01am

Geeks.

Every last one of yis.

leninbenjamin · 11-11-2009 10:53am

GothPunk wrote: »

Besides, I think we're coming at this from different angles. You're looking at what's possible from a tech viewpoint and not from a business perspective, which usually makes more sense when dealing with multinational corporations IMO.

Heh, I guess you're right. I agree with a lot of what you say, but i do take umbrage at some of the terms you use to describe it.

As for PS3 retaining the Cell. We all know it's been mooted, and it would cut the immediate development costs, but developer's have been so slow to fully exploit it's capacity and it still represents a significant overhead for them so I think Sony would be daft to continue with it. After all, profits in the sector were stagnating before the recession kicked off (if the commentary i read is to be believed). Every time we hear of an exclusive PS3 deal being signed I can't help but wonder at what cost, as it doesn't make much sense for developers and publishers when you consider Sony have less market penetration, and have higher development costs. Yet the lineup is still strong, so they must be taking big royalty hits somewhere? So questions for me are raised as to how sustainable are their current practices are? And this leads me back to the ultimate question of the PS3's life cycle profitability that started us down this whole path... I guess that won't become clear until we've fully exited the world recession and growth (along with disposable income) return to normal, but one thing's for certain, despite the positives recently, they are way down on their initial targets.

As a sidenote on the GPGPU: There are some rumours though that Nvidia are currently evaluating an entry into the CPU business. Seems odd at first, but when you think about it, it complements the GPGPU push for Nvida to have full control over a system's configuration. Might suit the console makers too, and opens up the possibility of a single lightweight CPU combined with a small clusters of low power GPUs. Hardware accelerated Physics, AI, Audio along with the usual skinning and rendering would represent a paradigm similar to the cell. Anyway, just some speculation...

noodler wrote: »

Geeks.

Every last one of yis.

:eek: don't be a hater...

GothPunk · 12-11-2009 4:22pm

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Heh, I guess you're right. I agree with a lot of what you say, but i do take umbrage at some of the terms you use to describe it.

That's cool, I don't mind being corrected, I did only take Computer Science in first year of college, ha!

leninbenjamin wrote: »

As for PS3 retaining the Cell. We all know it's been mooted, and it would cut the immediate development costs, but developer's have been so slow to fully exploit it's capacity and it still represents a significant overhead for them so I think Sony would be daft to continue with it. After all, profits in the sector were stagnating before the recession kicked off (if the commentary i read is to be believed). Every time we hear of an exclusive PS3 deal being signed I can't help but wonder at what cost, as it doesn't make much sense for developers and publishers when you consider Sony have less market penetration, and have higher development costs. Yet the lineup is still strong, so they must be taking big royalty hits somewhere? So questions for me are raised as to how sustainable are their current practices are? And this leads me back to the ultimate question of the PS3's life cycle profitability that started us down this whole path... I guess that won't become clear until we've fully exited the world recession and growth (along with disposable income) return to normal, but one thing's for certain, despite the positives recently, they are way down on their initial targets.

I don't think anyone could argue with that point, however I think that the PS3 slim is performing above target, across all markets. Sony said they were aiming to sell 13 million consoles this year, seems like they'll exceed that. (Although I'm sure we'd both agree that these hardware sales targets are probably very conservative). Due to development costs for HD games most analysts seem to agree that this console generation will be a lot longer than previous generations as profits across all 3 platforms have been down for third parties and I'm sure they're going to want to have some big successes on their books before they have to go through it all again next-gen. This all bodes well for Sony's '10-year life cycle' that they're always prattling on about.

I think your comments on the development scene for the PS3 sound like what people used to say a year or two ago. Since then we've seen that whilst the Wii has the most hardware sales, third party game sales are lacklustre. In Q12009 the PS3 platform was the single biggest earner for EA, I'm sure we can all agree that EA are perhaps the biggest third party out there and therefore this is a big deal for Sony and the PS3 - EA too lament their software sales on the Wii. The PS3 now appears to be the lead platform for EA's PS360 titles. I'm having trouble finding out the same for other studios, but there are other studios (e.g. Tecmo) who have made the PS3 the lead development platform. Whist the PS3 does have a smaller market penetration, clearly it hasn't affected the ability for EA to see major profits on the console, could the same be said for other developers/publishers perhaps? Do you have any links to demonstrate how PS3 development is more expensive than other platforms?

There are also other factors that I'm sure affect developers attitudes towards a platform, one of which is piracy. The PS3 is a 0% piracy console as to date the device has not been hacked or modded (there was some .tiff exploit but nothing ever came of it). As with any manufacturer, I'm sure Sony find ways to sweeten developers/publishers with free development tools and Sony funded marketing.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

As a sidenote on the GPGPU: There are some rumours though that Nvidia are currently evaluating an entry into the CPU business. Seems odd at first, but when you think about it, it complements the GPGPU push for Nvida to have full control over a system's configuration. Might suit the console makers too, and opens up the possibility of a single lightweight CPU combined with a small clusters of low power GPUs. Hardware accelerated Physics, AI, Audio along with the usual skinning and rendering would represent a paradigm similar to the cell. Anyway, just some speculation...

That's very interesting, I'm guessing their purchase of Ageia fits in there somewhere? Have they been motivated by AMD's purchase of ATI I wonder?

What are the Real differences between consoles?

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